Just one week after she submitted her first audition tape for a professional show, sophomore Ruby Spencer found herself at a callback at Olney Theatre Center in Olney, Maryland. She was later cast as Cassidy...

Director Kyle Balda’s newest animal movie has emerged as a black sheep among modern detective-comedy films. “The Sheep Detectives” started development in 2024 and was released on Friday, May 8. Though...

Song writing was once just a hobby for senior Thomas Schuler, but the percussionist's dedication for creating compositions and song lyrics has encouraged him to pursue music further on. Schuler, who...

Six episodes into its third season, HBO's Euphoria is experiencing an identity crisis, seemingly propelled by its own fame, by its need to be EUPHORIA, rather than character-first storytelling that had...

This story contains an alternate format that can only be viewed on the original site. View this story on The Oak Park Talon. It was originally published on May 20, 2026.

While talents are common to find among the student body, secret passions are also concealed within members of ADM's staff. The Spanish I and Spanish II teacher, Madeleine Gude, and the French teacher,...

A sign on Dalgubeol-daero reads in large white LED letters: VARIOUS JAZZ CLUB. You would think, given the sign, that what's inside would announce itself just as loudly — it does not. Step inside the...

Piano and theatre performance major, senior Maggie Brown, first became interested in composition when she helped write “Cows: The Moosical” during her freshman year with fellow theater major Anderson...

Whenever Broken Box actors take the Eagle Theater stage, sophomore Hannah Field’s work is featured right along with them. As one of two costume designers, Hannah sews, seams and hems costumes for Los...

Trumpet melodies and trombone glissandos flare through the band hall. In the back row, almost hidden behind thirty pounds of brass, senior Andrew Perry plays the notes that hold the entire ensemble together...

Nearly four decades after beginning his first novel, Dissension: A Disagreement that Leads to Discord, Baldwin alum Rodney Phillips decided to finish it and get it published. The story follows Kiley,...

Ever since May 8, the drive down First Street has included a new work of art. That Friday, the love and hard work of a handful of creative students and two teachers was wrapped around a traffic box on...

To honor Deaf History Month this year, Disney re-animated several popular songs to depict characters using American Sign Language. “Deaf History Month is important because it recognizes the history,...

George Orwell is buried in a quiet village in the English countryside — his body lies in the Sutton Courtenay All Saints’ parish churchyard, his grave adorned with copies of his influential books and...

When freshman Amx Marshall was younger, he would stare at a mural his great-grandmother had on her staircase. This mural became more memorable to him when he learned she had painted it herself. Now, after...

In the golden age of “Hallyu”, the K-culture wave, Korea’s entertainment industry pushes past its borders and dominates global screens. Yet behind the international acclaim, domestic broadcasters...

Gaming is an exceedingly popular hobby among high school students, with a Pew Research Center survey reporting that 85% of teenagers play video games. Across story games and player-versus-player games,...

The 2025 National History Day (NHD) finals winners once again took the spotlight as they showcased their project at the 2026 Hindsight Film Festival in Savannah, Georgia. The Daegu International School...

Mason City Schools hosted the first annual Battle of the Bands this Saturday at Principal Pavillion. Four student bands competed in front of a panel of judges and a host of community members for the grand...

Nearly 20 years after The Devil Wears Prada made audiences fall in love with the glamorous chaos of fashion media, its sequel swaps escapist charm for watered-down social commentary. The original film...

David Denny — Cupertino’s first poet laureate and De Anza College Professor Emeritus in English — stands onstage, filled with excitement. Cupertino's Quinlan Community Center is teeming with people,...

“I can remember not being taught Puerto Rican history. I didn't learn any Puerto Rican history in school,” Micah Johnson, a Spanish and Political issues in Latin America teacher, said. This statement...

The venue was small, the stage barely separated from the crowd. Just a few feet away, people were screaming, packed tightly together as The Hot Rileys’ rock music filled the space. Under the dim lights...

Scene One: On set, fluorescent lights dangle from the metal rigs in the ceiling. Thick black cables weave between colossal tripods and sound stands. Camera lenses gleam against the spotlight patiently...

Backstage, senior Serena Lau feels her heart pounding. The stage lights glow as Serena takes her first steps onto the stage, the butterflies in her stomach melting into muscle memory. She starts performing...

Visual teacher Ryan Toth is a lot like his desk: busy. In one glance, you take in every color of paint bottles, boxes of charcoals, and the open drawer where “Den Mother,” the stuffed racoon in a pink...

On any given night in Iowa City, poetry drifts through the narrow aisles of Prairie Lights Books, actors take their bows at The James Theater and musicians slip through glass doors into the Voxman Building....

Tap. Tap. Tap. Rain trickled in slow, deliberate paths down the windows of Coppell High School junior Sahasra Kalakonda’s childhood home in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the comfort of her home were...

A skunk is loose backstage, scampering about and causing a ruckus. A Ouija board has summoned paranormal creatures. The actors, waiting to go on stage, do not know what to do — how to fix the mess and...

For over 10 years, Alex Wang, ‘28, has practiced and excelled at the violin. Not only has he won an Overture Award for instrumental music, but he is also one of the youngest non-professional invitees...

In Room N316 on the third floor of Gordon Parks Arts Hall, students drift in and settle at tables, talking, unpacking, easing into their work for AP Drawing and Painting. Lyla Ruiz De Luzuriaga doesn't. “She...

As the world has quickly moved from regular cable television, to everything being put onto a streaming service–many shows have suffered from this transition in the modern world. One of the biggest examples...

Going from listening to Taylor Swift and The Chicks on her pink CD player as a child, Shannon Wiancko, senior and folk-pop artist, has now developed her love for music into a career as a singer-songwriter....

Men buy jerseys, paint themselves in the team’s colors, and scream as loud as they want for sports teams, but when women buy merch, defend celebrities online, and attend concerts, they are criticized. Devotion...

In a forest miles from home, senior Izzy Schafer and her team at Teen Made Media Productions built a dystopian world filled with fight scenes, political messages, and mosquitoes, all based on the young...

Menlo seniors Lavu Badjate and Diya Karthik didn’t just want to treat communities suffering from mental illnesses with traditional therapeutic approaches; they combined their shared passion for the arts...

You’d think metaphors about living in hell would be an oversaturated market by now, but it’s alternative artist Melanie Martinez’s topic of choice for her fourth studio album “HADES." Released...

Many kids have their own special talent in some way, whether it’s being a skilled mathematician or having the ability to recite every song in “Hamilton.” But it’s not everyday you meet someone...

Wood shavings fly in every direction as senior Roman McNichols steadies a smooth maple block against the spinning lathe. The machine vibrates, emitting a loud hum, but McNichols's grip on the block remains...

In recent years, moviegoing has begun to feel less like experiencing a story and more like scrolling through a highlight reel of things we already recognize. Familiar characters appear not because the...

Excitement echoes among Harvest Hall in Grapevine as the students of School of Rock Coppell join the audience after performing on stage. But there is still one more performance in the lineup: the teacher...

In the sixth grade, my favorite TV show was Glee, and not just because of the fun choreography and the hilarity of watching Finn praying to a grilled cheese sandwich, but because of McKinley High School’s...

Atop a military boat, boisterous scientists laugh and throw back beers to the upcoming end of the world. Their only shot at survival, the launch of a space shuttle to the distant star Tau Ceti, is mere...

Students at Tyrone Area High School recently swapped sheet music for notebooks and dove into the art of songwriting under the guidance of Nashville singer-songwriter Bronwen Fair. Organized by Tyrone...

Following the success of the original “Slay the Spire,” Mega Crit released “Slay the Spire 2” for early access on March 5, and it has already proved itself a worthy successor. The sequel keeps...

Whether collecting 12 CDs of Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” or constantly refreshing social media pages during the Golden Globes, fan culture — a globalized phenomenon connecting...

Over nine years, Upper School history teacher Dan Greenstone and Upper School arts teacher Travis Chandler have taught the elective Creating Historical Documentaries. In that class students analyze documentaries,...

More than 50 years ago, the first show to include a LGBTQ+ character on primetime television was "All in the Family" in 1971, which featured Philip Carey portraying the character Steve. One year later,...

As a kid, she picked up a pencil and began drawing her favorite princess ballgowns. But she didn’t just want to admire them – she wanted to create her own. Influenced by her grandma, sophomore Payton...

This article was originally published in WSS's print edition March 6 under the title "Grayscale." “Leaving soon.” The words appear encased in red on my favorite show. I feel a flash of anger,...